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They are self-moved to avoid the one and to observe the other.

With a knowledge of these laws, it is easy to see that the greater the freedom given to the industry and trade of a nation, the greater are the inducements to activity.* If its people are ambitious to excel, they have before them the encouragements of a world.

If nations would prosper and live, their only hope is to be found in their intelligence, industry, and faithfulness. The subject of free trade is not one merely of pecuniary relations,

these afford only the means of advance. It is a subject of moral interest, and one of deep concern to posterity.

If the prohibitory system were right for one nation, it would be right for all nations, and commerce would cease. This course is not adopted because it is opposed to the interests and experience of all-as already ascertained.

The protective policy, as such, has its domestic evils. Its encouragements lead to excesses, and to instability. Its inducements to enterprise fluctuate and become neutralized by home competition. It diverts labor from its accustomed channels to temporary objects, at a loss to the poor. It gives rise to corporations with power of capital detached from the conditions of industry, which tend to prostrate individual enterprise. It builds up factories and takes the young from their

* See Appendix I I.

"In 1828, the manufacturers, as a body, failed. It was much easier to tell who had survived the shock than to enumerate all that had fallen. A tariff was passed to save them, and they failed the faster after it was passed, besides the commercial failures which followed, not of people who had been insolvent for years, but of those who a year before were worth their tens of thousands, not to say their hundreds of thousands of dollars, and who had managed their business with ability and prudence. During most of the year 1829, the pressure continued till factory stock could hardly be given away, and shares which cost a thousand dollars, in some cases were sold for a five dollar bill, and in others would not bring that price."- From a Speech delivered in Salem, March, 1834, by Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr.

schools, and from the moral atmosphere of their homes.*

It

gives birth to cities, made up of people linked with mere machinery, without adequate means of moral and intellectual culture. We do not speak of examples, but of tendency. This country has not age enough to see the results of such a policy, and we are rejoiced to know that we have men of sufficient wisdom to establish a system that promises permanency and prosperity.

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* It is scarcely possible to speak of the vast accumulation of masses of human beings in the manufacturing districts - "the crowded hives," as they have been called, without something like anxiety and apprehension."

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"The employment of infant labor is very generally urged as the worst feature in the factory system, but it is generally recognized that this is a result of a greater evil, and in many cases an alleviation of it, arising from the disturbance of the parental and filial relations in manufacturing districts. The operatives are absent from home all day, and in many cases, from the crowded state of the lodging-houses, have no opportunity for conversation or social union with their families at night. Hence there is a want of those domestic feelings, reciprocally fostered by domestic intercourse a want which, to the operatives themselves, is a craving void,' scarcely suspected by those who are not intimate with their condition. Mothers remain at the mill during the period of their pregnancy to the very last hour of physical endurance, and they return to work at the earliest possible moment after their recovery. Hence there is a sad waste of infant life during the periods of lactation and teething, and when this critical time is past, there is an absence of parental care and superintendence, which exposes children to forming habits of vagrancy and idleness."

"To destroy the factory system is not practicable if it were desirable, nor quite desirable if practicable. But though we cannot destroy, we may use and regulate; we may so mould the course of its development as to render it the source of increased morality, increased prosperity, and increased social happiness to the British empire, and to every individual that empire contains."- Taylor's Natural History of Society.

The people of the United States should be admonished by the experience of Great Britain.

We should regret to have our views construed as hostile to the manufacturing interests of this country. Far from it. We would favor them, foster them, encourage them. Not by false hopes, or deceptive measures of protection, but by extending their markets and improving their fabrics. We would commend to them a business of prudence, in preference to one of risk; a permanent business, instead of a fluctuating one; an individual interest in preference to a company interest; and moderate dividends, that shall be uniform, in preference to large dividends, which are occasional.

To no citizen is our country more indebted for enlightened and practical views upon the tariff question than to the present able secretary of the treasury, the Hon. Robert J. Walker. His thoughts have become acts, and his experiments have become the policy of the nation. When we consider with what ability his opponents were arrayed against him, with what influences of rank and wealth they sought to establish an opposite system, we cannot but regard his victory as one of the greatest moral triumphs of the age. What Cobden has done for England, he has done for America. (See Appendix

J J.)

APPENDIX.

A.

DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, OCTOBER 14, 1774.

"WHEREAS, since the close of the last war, the British Parliament, claiming a power of right to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath in some acts expressly imposed taxes on them, and in others, under various pretences, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties payable in these colonies, established a board of commissioners, with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of Courts of Admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within the body of a county:

"And whereas, in consequence of other statutes, judges, who before held only estates at will in their offices, have been made dependent on the crown alone for their salaries, and standing armies kept in times of peace; and whereas it has lately been resolved in Parliament, that by force of a statute, made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, colonists may be transported to England, and tried there, upon accusations for treasons and misprisions, or concealments, of treasons committed in the colonies, and by a late statute, such trials have been directed in cases therein mentioned:

"And whereas, in the last session of Parliament, three statutes were made; one entitled 'An Act to discontinue, in such manner, and for such time, as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading, or shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America;' another entitled 'An Act for the better regulating the government of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England;' and another entitled 'An Act for

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